4 Insane Things People Just Found Underground
Our life on Earth's surface furnishes us with plenty of oddities, from bizarre animal behavior to unbelievable natural phenomena. Hell, there are horrifying things pelting down on us from the sky. It almost seems like a ploy by the Earth itself to distract us, as there's so much happening above ground that it's easy to forget about the subterranean weirdness happening beneath our feet.
A Soccer Stadium Delays Its Construction Because of a Secret Massive Bomb Shelter
Construction crews breaking ground for the San Jose Earthquakes' new soccer arena got a little more trouble than expected when shifting a 6-inch concrete foundation place revealed a massive network of forgotten bomb shelters under their work site. In all, they found over 70 vaults, seriously delaying work and presumably causing many of the workers to contemplate the futility of war.
Somewhere, Geraldo Rivera is enjoying some priapism.
These weren't nice, friendly Blast from the Past-type vaults, either. One was a gaping void bigger than an Olympic-size swimming pool. Another was full of so much water, they had to haul in 600 tons of rock to drain it. They even found freaking munitions in one of the chambers, no doubt leading to unprecedented levels of safe feelings in the heavy-equipment operators charged with finding the chambers.
Nobody knows why these bomb shelters were built or why so many were thought necessary. When the construction company checked, it turned out the food-processing plant built over them was old enough that they just didn't have to keep records on that kind of thing. We can only hope they stop digging before they hit a secret cache of Brendan Frasers.
"Release us ..."
London Has a Ball of Fat the Size of a Bus in Its Sewer System
When Kingston-area residents called officials to complain that their toilets and drains weren't emptying properly, the intrepid poo-spelunkers of London sprung into action. Once deep in the fecal catacombs, they found the kind of terror that your nightmares just aren't imaginative enough to generate -- a bus-size 15-ton wad of congealed sewer fat.
Enjoy the salad you're now undoubtedly going to have for lunch.
Held together by a horrible framework of used sanitary wipes and human fear, the ball of fat was dubbed "fatberg" by the local sewer workers. Gordon Hallwood, Thames Water's local supervisor, claims that if they hadn't found it when they did, the sewage would soon have been spurting out of every manhole cover in Kingston. Luckily, the ball of fat was removed in time and carted across town to be burned for electricity, saving the day once again, proving sewer workers to be society's great unrecognized heroes.
A Centuries-Old Grave Site Was Found in a Jersey Woman's Backyard
In an apparent attempt to make the unknown darkness below our feet even more terrifying, society has for centuries been sticking our dead people down there. Even worse, our record keeping regarding the dearly departed isn't always top notch, which Angela Posey found out the hard way when she discovered a 113-year-old tombstone hanging out in the backyard of her home.
We figured people from Jersey would be used to stumbling across surprise corpses by now.
The tombstone apparently was already there when her landlord bought the house 12 years ago, but he never got curious enough to do anything about it. Posey is terrified enough of the poltergeist-friendly environs that she no longer wants to use the yard. And considering that local police are planning on bringing sonar equipment to check a total of seven mysterious grave-size mounds in her yard for remains, we can't say we really blame her.
A Small Town
When Moscow police recently raided an area underneath a city street, they uncovered a little surprise: an entire small society beneath the city, packed to the gills with residents and activity. Apparently when the famous and immigrant-friendly Cherkizovsky Market closed down, its patrons decided to keep the party going downstairs by carving enough room out of the ground to house over 200 residents in some crazy mole person sweatshop.
"We were getting an Orange Julius next week."
Police found more than just homes down there, though. The residents decided to do the underground sub-city thing in style and had a movie theater, a bar, and a cafe. Hell, there was even a working casino down there, patronized by the kind of person for whom living in a hastily constructed underground slum just wasn't risky enough.
